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June 14, 2005
Nesting, Commence!
Last weekend PreZ and I gave the birth pool its proper test run, with water in it. Mostly because we wanted to know exactly how long it would take to inflate and fill, so we don't end up underestimating that when that time is on hand. All up, we'll need about an hour to inflate and fill it to where we want it, and it takes about twice that to pump out all the water.
Testing it was fun though, we ended up having a hot tub in the living room. So we lounged around in there watching a movie for a while.
Over the course of the week some of the stuff we ordered arrived, such as the bed and the diaper bag. The diaper bag, which can work as a shoulder bag somewhat, and is more of a backpack, is so much roomier than it looks. It's a fairly small bag, but there's loads of space and pockets in it, more than I had known about. So a good choice there... and I managed to find it on Ebay for about $10-15 cheaper than another place I was considering, so bonus there too. The fact that it's a backpack also means it doesn't scream "baby poo supplies!" either, and it's a fairly neutral design so PreZ won't mind carrying it around.
Friday we decided to hit up a Babies-R-Us near us, because the shipping charges on some of the items didn't make it worth ordering online from Amazon/Babies-R-Us. So we got a bunch of the child safety stuff (PreZ wanted to get that out of the way, even though the kid won't be mobile for months or more), and some other bits and pieces and necessities, a couple of small toys. It all adds up really fast though, even when you're sticking to the basics.
We also got the travel playard thing we had been looking at. It's a playard, which also has a bassinet in it and a changing table on top, and you can convert it according to your needs. We had considered using that as our primary changing table, because we're pressed for space in our apartment, and with it in the other room than the bed (which is in our bedroom), we'd also thought the bassinet part would be handy to have the baby sleep there if we were busy in the other room. Plus, it being a travel playard, you can pack it into the travel case and schlep it with you to some event/gathering, and have a place to put the baby to sleep and change it there too. Perfect, or so we thought. Then we got home and put it together, and I realised that the changing table part said that you could only use it up to 3 months/13lbs, which rendered it virtually useless, especially as that really was the primary function we wanted it for, and a baby needs to be changed well beyond 3 months.
After debating the issue, we figured it probably made more sense to just get a proper piece of furniture for the changing table, preferably one with drawers or some kind of storage device (many, especially on the lower end of the price scale, only have one or two shelves under the table part, we wanted something more than just bare shelves). We found something we liked on Target's site, and after going back to Babys-R-Us on Saturday to get a refund on that playard, and picking up some more necessities which we'd now need (changing table pad & cover etc.) we headed to (one of) the local Target(s). Of course they don't stock anywhere near the amount of furniture in store that they have on their site (and as we were told, if this store didn't display it, the others wouldn't have it either, because they generally have the same in-store stock everywhere), and that was a significant bummer, as their shipping charge on that item on their site was $107. Even though another table with similar dimensions and the same weight had a $47 or so shipping charge. When we asked why that was, the answer was just that the shipping price was just defined per item, not by weight/dimensions... helpful.
Nobody really wants to have a $100+ shipping charge on a piece of furniture that's already not cheap (well, it's not super expensive either, far from it, but with all the other stuff you have to get, it all adds up), so PreZ decided to hit up Froogle to see if we could find that particular piece of furniture elsewhere, and we got lucky. Not only was it about $20 cheaper on another site, they have a $6.95 flat rate shipping charge. How they ever manage to ship an entire changing table/dresser for $6.95 is beyond me, but I'm not going to complain on that count, it's way better than $107.
Monday morning I got email confirmation that the sling I ordered is in the mail, so that will arrive sometime this week. PreZ got confirmations that the order that includes the furniture shipped, as well as an order that included a lot of diapering accessories. Amazon packages arrived in the afternoon, so various other bits and pieces are now accounted for.
I've paid for my share in a large batch of prefold diapers that an online vendor was ordering, so hopefully those will be here sometime next week. The discount was too nice to resist. Now I just need to order a few last things for the diapering stuff... cloth wipes, doublers, possibly some fleece liners and one other cover I wanted. I have some pending transactions for diapering stuff on another board too, so hopefully that will also all be done by next week. Once the prefolds get here I can prewash them a couple of times like I'm supposed to, and that too will be out of the way.
In other 'nesting' news, I washed various baby bed linen things, and have been organising our bedroom a bit, including closets. We already weeded out a bunch of crap a while ago from another dresser, the "we'll never wear this, and it's been untouched in years" kind of stuff. It's been sorted in "Ebayable", "donatable" and "tossable". There's still some other bits and pieces in the bottom of the closet and some of the bottom drawers to deal with, but I have most of that room sorted with the exception of some dusting/cleaning and organising. PreZ sorted out most of a large storage space in the kitchen, but that still needs some work too.
I hope to actually Ebay a bunch of stuff soon, including a bunch of goth clothing that I doubt I'll be wearing again, which I never or barely ever wore anyway, or which I know I don't want to keep. I just want to get that out of the way before life and other things intervene. Plus any money from that can offset a bunch of the baby expenses.
Then there are the other rooms to deal with, and cooking for the freezer that I want to do, and laundering baby clothes and things. Hopefully the house will be organised by the end of the week at least, the laundry I don't mind dealing with a bit later, but I want to get the apartment in order as much as possible.
And... and... and... yeah, loads of stuff left to do ;)
Now I'm just left hoping that this kid will stay put for a while, because there's so much to do that I really don't want it to be early, though I never wanted it to be early anyway... it can bake as long as it needs to and that's just dandy with me. 4 weeks left officially, and it doesn't seem like enough time sometimes.
Posted on 02:49 AM to: Pregnancy